Trisha Franzen - Spinsters and Lesbians: Independent Womanhood in the United States

Spinsters and Lesbians

THE CUTTING EDGE
Lesbian Life and Literature

THE CUTTING EDGE
Lesbian Life and Literature

Series Editor: Karla Jay
Professor of English and Womens Studies
PACE UNIVERSITY

EDITORIAL BOARD

Judith Butler, Rhetoric
UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Blanche Wiesen Cook
History and Womens Studies
JOHN JAY COLLEGE AND
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW
YORK GRADUATE CENTER

Diane Griffin Crowder
French and Womens Studies
CORNELL COLLEGE

Joanne Glasgow
English and Womens Studies
BERGEN COMMUNITY
COLLEGE

Marny Hall
Psychotherapist and Writer

Celia Kitzinger
Social Studies
LOUGHBOROUGH
UNIVERSITY, UK

Jane Marcus
English and Womens Studies
CITY COLLEGE AND CITY
UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
GRADUATE CENTER

Biddy Martin
German Studies and Womens
Studies
CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Elizabeth A. Meese
English
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

Esther Newton
Anthropology
SUNY, PURCHASE

Terri de la Pea
Novelist/Short Story Writer

Ruthann Robson, Writer
LAW SCHOOL, QUEENS
COLLEGE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW
YORK

Leila J. Rupp, History
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Ann Allen Shockley
Librarian
FISK UNIVERSITY

Elizabeth Wood
Musicologist and Writer
Committee on Theory and
Culture
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Bonnie Zimmerman
Womens Studies
SAN DIEGO STATE
UNIVERSITY

THE CUTTING EDGE:
Lesbian Life and Literature

Series Editor: Karla Jay

The Cook and the Carpenter: A Novel by the Carpenter
by June Arnold
with an introduction by Bonnie Zimmerman

Ladies Almanack
by Djuna Barnes
with an introduction by Susan Sniader Lanser

Adventures of the Mind:
The Memoirs of Natalie Clifford Barney
translated by John Spalding Gatton
with an introduction by Karla Jay

Sophia Parnok: The Life and Work of Russias Sappho
by Diana Burgin

Paint It Today
by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
edited and with an introduction by
Cassandra Laity

The Angel and the Perverts
by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus
translated and with an introduction by Anna Livia

Heterosexual Plots and Lesbian Narratives
Marilyn R. Farwell

Spinsters and Lesbians: Independent Womanhood in the United States
by Trisha Franzen

Diana: A Strange Autobiography
by Diana Frederics
with an introduction by Julie L. Abraham

Lover
by Bertha Harris

Elizabeth Bowen: A Reputation in Writing
by rene c. hoogland

Lesbian Erotics
edited by Karla Jay

Changing Our Minds: Lesbian Feminism and Psychology
by Celia Kitzinger and Rachel Perkins

(Sem)Erotics: Theorizing Lesbian : Writing
by Elizabeth A. Meese

Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics:
Sex, Loyalty, and Revolution
by Paula C. Rust

The Search for a Woman-Centered Spirituality
by Annette J. Van Dyke

I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, 17911840
edited by Helena Whitbread

No Priest but Love: The Journals of Anne Lister, 182426
edited by Helena Whitbread

Independent Womanhood
in the United States

Trisha Franzen

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London

Copyright 1996 by New York University

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Franzen, Trisha, 1951

Spinsters and lesbians : independent womanhood in the United
States / Trisha Franzen.

p. cm. (The cutting edge)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8147-2641-0. ISBN 0-8147-2642-9 (pbk.)

1. LesbianismUnited States. 2. Single womenUnited States.
3. FeminismUnited States. 4. WomenUnited StatesBiography.
I. Title. II. Series: Cutting edge (New York, N.Y.)
HQ75.6.U5F73 1996
306.7663dc20 95-32464

CIP

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free
paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength
and durability.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Families and Childhoods in the Progressive Era

Growing Up Female, 1936-1965

Defining Independent Womanhood in the Progressive Era

Toward Independent Womanhood after World War II

Community and Companions among Progressive Era Women

Lesbian Identities and Communities after World War II

Resisting and Surviving as Independent Women

Despite the efforts of lesbian and feminist publishing houses and a few university presses, the bulk of the most important lesbian works has traditionally been available only from rare-book dealers, in a few university libraries, or in gay and lesbian archives. This series intends, in the first place, to make representative examples of this neglected and insufficiently known literature available to a broader audience by reissuing selected classics and by putting into print for the first time lesbian novels, diaries, letters, and memoirs that are of special interest and significance, but which have moldered in libraries and private collections for decades or even for centuries, known only to the few scholars who had the courage and financial wherewithal to track them down.

Their names have been known for a long timeSappho, the Amazons of North Africa, the Beguines, Aphra Behn, Queen Christina, Emily Dickinson, the Ladies of Llangollen, Radclyffe Hall, Natalie Clifford Barney, H.D., and so many others from every nation, race, and era. But government and religious officials burned their writings, historians and literary scholars denied they were lesbians, powerful men kept their books out of print, and influential archivists locked up their ideas far from sympathetic eyes. Yet some dedicated scholars and readers still knew who they were, made pilgrimages to the cities and villages where they had lived and to the graveyards where they rested. They passed around tattered volumes of letters, diaries, and biographies, in which they had underlined what seemed to be telltale hints of a secret or different kind of life. Where no hard facts existed, legends were invented. The few precious and often available pre-Stonewall lesbian classics, such as The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, The Price of Salt by Claire Morgan (Patricia Highsmith), and Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule, were cherished. Lesbian pulp was devoured. One of the primary goals of this series is to give the more neglected works, which constitute the vast majority of lesbian writing, the attention they deserve.

A second but no less important aim of this series is to present the cutting edge of contemporary lesbian scholarship and theory across a wide range of disciplines. Practitioners of lesbian studies have not adopted a uniform approach to literary theory, history, sociology, or any other discipline, nor should they. This series intends to present an array of voices that truly reflects the diversity of the lesbian community. To help me in this task, I am lucky enough to be assisted by a distinguished editorial board that reflects various professional, class, racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds as well as a spectrum of interests and sexual preferences.